The story is a cliche, but the way the media is frothing about it, you’d think we’re back in the golden age of westerns.
It’s the typical cowboy vs. rustler story:
1.) cowboy tries to keep a little spread and make a living; 2.) some rustler tries to horn in to make money; c.) cowboy prevails, simultaneously getting . . . → Read More: Media Loco for Naked Cowboy Suit

“I have often been asked how my characters differ from the traditional, larger-than-life heroes of the mythical West,” Mr. Kelton said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News in 2007. “ ‘Those,’ I reply, ‘are seven feet tall and invincible. My characters are 5-8 and nervous.’ ”

We have Daniel Boone’s ADHD to thank for the western two-thirds of the United States. June 7 is a day that lives in glorious Disney colors or one that lives in infamy, depending on whether you were not or were a Native American.
On June 7, 1769, Daniel Boone crested a summit in the Appalachians and looked . . . → Read More: Boone’s Day; or, Not the Boone of Boone’s Farm

Arizona was birthed by treaty and the Territory of New Mexico on February 23, 1863 (how did they have time to work this out in the middle of a disastrous Civil War?). Pretty, shiny things brought prospectors and settlers, drove out Native American tribes (again), and opened the state to a future of retirement communities, faux frontier towns, . . . → Read More: An Alien Land; or, Happy Birthday, Arizona!

The Kid is in. The Great Decider is out–and so are slimy campaign innuendos. I’ll not be sorry to hear the last of the slander of the good Maverick family name. I’ll not be sorry to have less of cowboy-diplomacy-this* and cowboy-foreign-policy-that drop into my inbox with such alarming regularity. And I won’t be surprised if this . . . → Read More: I Heart the Obama Kid

My mother read Tony Hillerman’s books–one after the other, like eating potato chips.* One quiet day in her condo** I stretched out my hand and picked up a creased paperback and immediately fell into Hillerman Country.

I was in love. He was the blue-eyed rascal, the master of the one liner. He was, by turns, cool and hot–matched by his partner who was hot and cool. The two of them wore their dusty britches like uniforms of hip scoundreldom, and they grasped six-guns in sure fingers. I didn’t even mind the girl . . . → Read More: Newman’s Own

In an American headline world dominated by an Alaskan governor, in the face of tragedy on the floodplains of India (three million people displaced), and escalating tensions worldwide, it’s time to escape into a good western, where problems can be solved in about ninety minutes.